Messages cited in murder trial
Defense calls messages showing parents ‘disappointed’ by suspect ‘cherry-picked’
Prosecutors turn to texts showing slain parents were “disappointed” by teen son accused in their killings, but defense says texts were “cherry-picked.”
A Houston teen standing trial in the slayings of his parents was in hot water with them in the months leading up to the killings, repeatedly being disciplined and reprimanded over grades and dishonesty, according to text messages revealed in court Wednesday.
Text exchanges between Antonio Armstrong, Jr., his mother and father showed a teen who was frequently explaining his actions when he was caught bending the truth. His parents were not shy in expressing their disappointment.
“He is a bold face liar like I have never seen before,” Dawn Armstrong said in a text to her son and husband, after she found out he was untruthful about being at basketball practice.
Dawn Armstrong and her husband, Antonio Armstrong Sr., were found shot to death in their beds on July 29, 2016. Their son, who also goes by A.J., was charged with capital murder. He was 16 at the time and certified to be tried as an adult.
Defense attorneys contended that the messages didn’t show the full picture of the couple’s relationship with their son and that jurors only saw a small portion of texts extracted from Armstrong’s phone.
“Out of 80,000 pages of phone records, that’s all they could come up with,” attorney Rick DeToto said. “The other most important thing about those phone records is they cherry-picked certain records to put in front of the jury.”
Prosecutors aren’t being made available to the media during the course of the trial.
The texts that were shown in court were sent and received over the course of fall 2015 to July 2016. On multiple occasions, Armstrong’s parents called him out for poor grades or spending too much money.
He got grounded once over not being home when he promised, and another time his car privileg
es were taken away, according to the messages. He was also caught apparently lying about whether his girlfriend’s parents were present when he was over at her house.
On May 21, 2016, Dawn Armstrong texted her son and husband because she heard that A.J. was smoking marijuana in the house.
He said it was a vaporizer and that he got rid of it. His parents continued to reprove him.
“Don’t come up with some creative story on how it appeared again,” his father texted.
On June 3, 2016, the couple confronted their son about several D’s he received in school. He wasn’t readmitted to The Kinkaid School for the fall because of his performance, according to administrators and coaches who have testified over the course of the trial.
“I’m not even going to try and say sorry for everything because right now I know my word doesn’t mean anything to you guys,” the teen said in a text. “I put myself in the absolute worst possible position with not only school but with the way you guys think about me. I know that I have gone to another level with my actions and know I need a major life change right now.”
His mother said she was “beyond disappointed.”
“All you do is lie to us, scheme behind our back,” she said.
His father added that they’ve paid thousands of dollars in tutors to get his grades up – which he said ended up being a waste of time.
Nathan Gates, an investigator with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, presented the evidence to prosecutors as well as messages and activity reports from Armstrong’s iPad, including on July 28, 2016, the eve of the slayings.
One specific exchange centered on a piece of evidence in the case. Armstrong’s girlfriend asked in one message why he didn’t have his phone the other night, and he answered, “Oh I was playing with matches and dropped one and some of the carpet caught on fire and I blamed my sister.”
When he later spoke to investigators, Armstrong explained a burn mark on the top of the stairs in a similar way.
DeToto said that the texts to Armstrong’s girlfriend were otherwise flirty, and that it showed a demeanor not consistent with someone allegedly hours away from killing his parents.
Armstrong had also texted his brother, Josh, that day about whether he could borrow his Mustang for a trip to Galveston.
In the final testimony heard on Wednesday, two employees of a security services company said that the home’s alarm system appeared to be working properly the night the Armstrongs died. The system didn’t detect any intruders, according to ADT records.
Chris Collings, who is also representing Armstrong, said he’ll aim to prove on Thursday that it’s possible for someone to bypass the system.
“We’re not necessarily claiming that the alarm system didn’t work,” Collings said. “The problem is that there are holes in the alarm system.”
DeToto said he expects the prosecution to rest its case on Thursday.
Armstrong faces life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years. Because he was a juvenile at the time of the killing, he would not be eligible for the death penalty.